Real-time data queries designed to support decision making

Today’s managers face two challenges making business increasingly complex, especially against the backdrop of existing volatile market conditions: One challenge being a doubling of data every 18 months, specifically the very foundation of information overload: Data exchange is on the increase causing higher pace and amounts of processes. Therefore, it is virtually no bother to find information; rather, it is extremely challenging to weed out the right information in order to acquire a useful body of knowledge. The second challenge being managers face, which makes business increasingly complex, is that innovation cycles are constantly shortening; this makes it extremely difficult for literally every industry to simply keep up. Thus, what is state-of-the-art today can be obsolete tomorrow. This is why speed at which decisions are made is paramount. more

Today, mobility is the new desktop: More and more companies offer several options for employees to work outside their regular offices, namely to work on portable devices like laptops, smartphones, tablets and the like. This is not only true for big companies, but also for mid-size and smaller companies. In Germany, every fifth company takes extensive advantage of mobility and 50% of their staff is at least one day in the week not in front of their pc, meaning they are on the road. As a matter of fact, mobility is the fastest growing industry in the history of IT. With the help of mobility solutions, executives, for example, have access to reporting at a fingertip, so that the constant nagging of middle management becomes almost superfluous. More

Implementing quality measures on projects is often challenging. This is due to their volatile nature, evolving standards and project scenarios, which make it more challenging to standardize rules, having survived many nonstandard complex projects and their quality audits. This is why I wanted to share my lessons learned which rhyme with everything PMI advocates and specific to AMS Projects. more

The term “change management “ has been interpreted in different ways by different people depending on the context in which the change is being introduced, the reason for the change or the execution of the change. While conventional wisdom suggests that this phrase encapsulates any shift or transition from a current state to a pre-defined, different and desired future state, various experts have broken down this term in a number of ways and coined their own definitions. Some prefer to list the phases or stages involved such as 1. Adapting to change, 2. Managing change and 3. Effecting change. Other organizations such as Prosci Inc. talk about the three elements of change management being 1. The process, tools and skills to achieve change, 2. Managing the people part of the change and 3. Achieving the objectives related to the change. (Prosci Inc., 1996-2011)

In this article, we aim to examine change management with a strong focus on the people management side of change, using one of Prosci’s models to illustrate the challenges faced during change management while analyzing a real life example from relevant past industry experience. More